NFL Quarterback Profile: Jake Delhomme

After Jake Delhomme went down last season with an elbow injury, things look bad for Carolina. They were without their star quarterback and had to rely on backups. The Panthers ended their season below par at 7-9.

Delhomme decided to have Tommy John surgery, which replaces the damaged ligament with a tendon from another part of the body. His procedure took only 90 minutes and was performed by team physician Dr. Pat Connor at Carolinas Medical Center.

Delhomme commented to ESPN, "In all honesty, there's a part of me that's happy this all happened. The last couple years, the elbow was really giving me problems and I was playing through them. I'm not sure how long I could have gone on like that. But the elbow's stronger than it was before and it's going to be better than it was before. I think this has probably added some years onto my career."

Jake had a long road to recovery. He rehabbed his revamped elbow by tossing of a Nerf ball in the Bank of America Stadium training room. This rehab has seemed to help Delhomme come back strong. He's looked great so far this season. Jake's performance through six games, we've seen him complete 106 passes out of 181 attempts. This makes his completion percentage 58.6%.

Delhomme has tossed for a total of 1338 yards with an average attempt of 7.4 yards, which combined for 5 total touch down passes. He's tested out his new elbow by completing his longest pass, which was for 56 yards. Jake has also thrown a total of 5 interceptions this season.

Jake has been throwing the ball all over the place this season. With the off-season acquisition of Muhsin Muhammad and D.J. Hackett, Jake has had more targets to spread the ball to this season. Delhomme has completed 29 passes to Muhsin Muhammad for a total of 426 yards with 2 touchdowns. Then there's the team favorite, Steve Smith with 22 receptions for 374 yards with 1 touchdown. Steve's stats may seem low right now due to his 2 game suspension he received for punching teammate Ken Lucas in training camp. Jake has also used Dante Rosario for 15 receptions, which gives Rosario 166 total yards with 1 touchdown. Even injured D.J. Hackett has received the ball 10 times for 131 yards.

The only place I can see Jake improving would be his interceptions. One reason this stat is so high this year came during the Tampa Bay game where all three of Tampa Bay's interceptions came on passes that were deflected off Delhomme's intended receivers. So if you subtract those 3 interceptions form his total of 5 then you get a new total of 2. I wish math mattered but in this case it doesn’t.

Overall Jake has been impressing Carolina fans with his miraculous return to the NFL. His return makes him the only NFL quarterback to return and start in the NFL after Tommy John surgery. This toughness makes him the man in Carolina to lead the Panthers to victory each Sunday.

This Sunday versus the Saints, Jake will have his hands full with the defense. Jake needs to stay alert behind his injured riddled offensive line because the Saints defense has a total of 13 sacks this season. Jake has already been sacked 9 times this season. The Saints have 5 interceptions this season, which means Delhomme's receiving corp. needs to hold onto the ball. Overall I think Carolina has a great chance to beat the Saints at Bank of America Stadium where the Panthers are purrrrrfect this year.